The Boy in Room 101
by A.Mind.of.Disturbed.Current
Summary: Lily is placed in a troubling position and her friends aren’t really being of much help as they are preoccupied with the rumours that Waller is going to force uniforms upon the student body.


Title: The Boy in Room 101

Author: A-Mind-of-Disturbed-Current

Rating: M (purely for references to self-harm, non-descriptive)

Pairing: none, perhaps occasional and brief references to canon relationships (ex. Ray and Lily).

Disclaimer: I do not own RFR and I make no money from this story.

Summary: Lily is placed in a troubling position and her friends aren't really being of much help as they are preoccupied with the rumours that Waller is going to force uniforms upon the student body.

Author's Note: WARNING, this story references self-harm. Not really set during any specific season or episode, just some time after the episode where Lily becomes obsessed with the "tortured artist" and fellow student Jackson. Oh yeah, and Waller is my favourite character. As always, please review, I appreciate feedback, it gives me a sense of how I'm doing and lets me know what you guys think.

Chapter One

Lily sighed. She was slumped back in her chair and struggling to stay awake. She found that geography on its own was not terribly exciting and it would never be her favourite subject, but combined with Mr. James, it was soporific. He was the most boring teacher she had ever had the misfortune to meet, it was just that voice, it was so monotone and droning. Better than a warm glass of milk in the evening for putting people to sleep. Which isn't good if you need to pass the class.

She looked around the room, looking for some kind of distraction to keep her mind from shutting down completely. As her gaze moved across the room, she saw that most of the other students had already found their distractions or else sleeping already. Those who were awake were preoccupying themselves with doodling, in the margins of their papers or on the desks themselves and a few were daydreaming, but there was one student who caught her eye. He was sitting upright in his chair and seemed to actually taking notes without a hint of sleepiness. She was just about to look away, but something stopped her.

The guy she was watching sat a couple desks in front and one to the right of her, but she could still see him quite clearly, and what she was seeing was not a good sign. He had allowed his left arm to fall to his side and hang there and in the process, his sleeve had ridden up, revealing a good portion of his forearm. His forearm was covered with scars, some old and faded, and others disturbingly fresh. The orientation and sheer number of the injuries made it impossible for her to believe that they could have been incurred accidentally. Which meant that either he had caused the damage to himself on purpose, or that someone else was responsible. Either way, Lily found herself unable to understand why he…wait…what was his name? Was it possible that she had never known it? Searching her memory, she couldn't even remember speaking to him once or even be sure whether she had seen him before. She didn't even know the guy and they were in the same class…

She frowned, she would have to talk to Ray, Lily and Travis, one of them had to know who he is. Maybe she just hadn't noticed him because this was the first class they had been in together and he was so quiet. Yeah, that had to be it. The bell rang and she looked down at her paper before putting her things back in her bag and getting up. It was blank. Yeah. She was going to fail geography if she kept this up. For the remainder of her morning classes her preoccupation with the situation refused to dissipate and she found herself unable to focus on any of the material she was supposed to be learning.

Later on that day at lunch, Lily joined the rest of the RFR DJs at their usual table. As usual, Ray was combining two of the not so appetizing cafeteria dishes and the others seemed to be trying not to voice their disgust, but they hadn't managed to avoid the corresponding facial expressions. "Hey guys, I've got a question for you," she said.

"If this is about your guitar, I didn't do it!"

"No, its about--wait, what did you do to my guitar Ray?" she demanded.

"Nothing, so, uh, what's your question?" he asked, hoping that he would never have to explain the fact that he got mayonnaise on her guitar. He had a feeling that telling her that at least it wasn't hot sauce this time wasn't going to fly with her. Fortunately for him, in a way, Lily was so preoccupied with what she had seen that morning that she didn't really pick up on his verbal stumble.

"Well, this morning in geography I was really bored and I realized something--"

"If this was a dream, it'd be pants, so I'm going to go with forgot to wear underwear."

"Ray!" Lily's fist made contact with his arm. "This isn't one of your weird dreams."

"Ow!" He rubbed his arm. "Okay, I got the message. Underwear is not an acceptable topic. Got it."

Robbie simply shook his head at the pair of them. Would they ever both admit that they care for each other and get together? Their obliviousness was generally quite amusing.

"Come on Lily, tell us about your realization, it has to be better than watching Ray eat that," said Travis, shooting a disgusted look at Ray's plate. Best of both worlds could get pretty gross sometimes.

"Anyway, I saw this guy and I realized that I didn't even know his name," she explained. She didn't want to say much more, now that she was out of the room she wasn't so sure about what she had seen or whether she should be talking about it with her friends. Was it even her business? She certainly didn't want to be the cause of any rumours.

"That's it? What a letdown. Who cares? No one knows everyone in the whole school."

Robbie shrugged. "Ray has a point."

"I guess, but it really bothers me, it was like I didn't even know he existed. Maybe you know who he is?" she asked hopefully.

"Try describing him then," suggested Robbie, "we'll do our best."

"Okay, well, it was hard to tell, but I think he was tall, he doesn't wear glasses…um dark hair…?"

"You just described half the guys at this school, I have no idea who you're talking about."

She turned to Ray and Travis and both of them both shook their heads. Well that was alright, she'd just to have to go to plan B. Yeah. If there was a plan B, she hadn't thought of one yet. She was so deep in thought that she barely heard a word of what her friends said, if asked later she would never have been able to reply that they had talked about the rumours that Waller was going to force the students of Henry Roscoe High to wear uniforms. But by the end of the day she had formulated a plan B that she could implement the next day.

Despite the simplicity of her plan, Lily felt a bit nervous when she was getting ready for school the next day. It didn't really make sense to her since all she was going to do was try to talk to the guy (it wasn't like she had a crush on him or anything) before first period geography started, but the nerves were there all the same, though not as bad as she felt before a performance.

When she arrived at school, she only felt worse, but had to find out more about this guy. She didn't know who he was, but she couldn't help feeling somewhat concerned about him. If she could just talk to him and see that he was okay, then maybe she could stop thinking about those scars. Although, she still wasn't sure what exactly she was going to say, it wasn't as if she could just come right out and ask him directly. No, she would have to rely on intuition and interpret his responses toward her. If he seemed normal, that would be a good thing, or so she had decided. If he didn't seem normal, well then, that would be a different situation and she would deal with that if and when it happened.

Lily passed on meeting her friends before school like she usually did, unfortunately, she would have to be evasive about the reason for her absence as long as she felt like it would be wrong for her to discuss the matter with them directly. She found him sitting against the wall outside the classroom, not doing anything in particular, just staring into space. As usual, he wore dark clothing with long sleeves, his dark hair seemed a bit unruly, and despite his alertness during class, he looked a little tired. She stopped walking and stood beside him. She swallowed before gathering the courage to speak. "Hey, um, could I get your notes from yesterday," he looked up at her, just staring at her as if she were stupid, so she tried to explain herself, "I, I think I might have missed a few points…" It was a huge understatement, but there was a grain of truth there.

His expression softened some and he reached into his bag to find the correct binder. "Sure, but I need these back by tomorrow."

"No problem. And I'll even return them in the condition I got them in," she joked.

"I should hope so," he snapped.

Wow. He was serious, perhaps abnormally so. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend." But he didn't say anything in response, he merely resumed staring ahead and she couldn't help but wonder what was going on inside his head. "So, um, I'm Lily," she said, hoping he would follow with his own introduction.

He sighed. "Eric."

She was saved the struggle of continuing conversation with her antisocial classmate by the bell. Promptly, he stood and walked into the classroom, leaving her standing in the hall. Okay, so he wasn't normal, but what did that mean? Did it mean anything at all? Clearly he didn't want to be her friend, so was that because he didn't like her or because he was antisocial and didn't like anyone? This was certainly going to be a problem for her plan. But then, was this really any of her business in the first place? Maybe she should just forget about it…yeah, that would probably be for the best.

But when lunchtime came, she was still thinking about Eric, despite the rumours that Waller was going to implement school uniforms within the month. Rumours that were becoming more and more Lily was sitting at the gang's normal table with half her attention half-focused on the discussion about how best to combat Waller's new quest to restrict their freedom. The conversation had turned to ideas for that afternoon's show when he walked in. He found a table alone in the corner and pulled out a bag lunch.

"Lily? Lily? LILY?"

"Hm?" She hadn't heard a word that any of them had said for some time and certainly had no idea that they had been talking to her at all.

"You were spaced out there," Robbie commented, following her gaze, "Got a thing for the weird kid?"

"What? No, that's the guy from geography," she said, "does he always sit there alone?"

"Yeah, and you're staring at him because?"

"Um…he just seems so weird, I can't believe I didn't notice him before. So, uh, new topic, what would you do if you were concerned for a…friend?"

Ray, having his normally abnormally short attention span, quickly became bored with the conversation. "Easy, I'd talk to their other friends and decide what to do. What are we going to do about these uniforms?"

"How about a song by Shady Lane?" suggested Robbie. "That always gets the fan fired up."

"Sure…" She sunk back into her thoughts, Ray's advice did her no good, Eric didn't seem to have any friends to speak of. Her friends were too busy debating the issue to notice that her only contribution to the conversation was the occasional nod. The fact that Ray, Robbie and Travis hardly noticed told her that they weren't going to be much help in this matter. She really could use some advice here, but who could she turn to? Her friends? No. Her teachers? Not them either, she didn't really know any of them. A counsellor? Did Roscoe High even have one? And what about Waller? He seemed the least likely choice, but he had attempted to help Travis get through some stuff on a couple of occasions, so maybe he could be of some help. But the question remained, should she talk to anyone about this at all?

That night, she didn't sleep well. Lily tossed and turned all night, unable to find a comfortable position between unpleasant dreams.

_It began normally. Lily got out of bed, dressed, combed her hair, grabbed a quick breakfast and brushed her teeth before grabbing her school bag and leaving the house. The walk to school went by much more quickly than usual, but she didn't notice the inconsistency. The school was also different, it seemed smaller somehow, and there was no one else in the hallways. Was she late? For some reason, she had a bad feeling about the whole situation, but she couldn't stop walking despite how the bad feeling was growing as she approached the end of the room and her first period class. She walked into the room and froze. __He was the only one there, sitting in his usual desk, but something was wrong. He wasn't moving, he was leaning back in his chair with his head tilted comically back. There was a pool of red liquid spreading across the floor toward her. Blood dripping down from cuts on his arms. A wave of cold washed over her body as she realized that his eyes were devoid of life. Suddenly, his head snapped up and he stared at her._

With a gasp, she woke up. If her dream meant anything, it was that she couldn't simply forget about Eric.

At this point, Waller was her only option, the trick would be getting to him without the guys finding out and figuring out what to say. If she didn't say anything, there was no guarantee that anyone else would, and then it could be too late. While getting ready for school that morning she must have gone over what to say a hundred, maybe a thousand times and arriving at school, she thought that she had finally determined what would be the best course of action.

After returning the geography notes to Eric and instead of going to her second period class that day, she headed to the main office. Fortunately, only Ray was in her class, so it wouldn't be hard to make something up as a reason for coming late to class. If Robbie or Travis had been in her class as well, she knew it would not be so easy to distract them. Ray still seemed to believe everything she said and if she told him it was 'girl stuff' he would get flustered and just leave it at that. Like most grade nine boys, he just didn't want to know about girl stuff that would make one late for class and if he did pursue the matter, she could scare him with some of the items she kept in her bag. Taking a deep breath she raised her hand and knocked on the Waller's open office door.

He looked up from the papers he was reading. "Ms. Randall. Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Yeah, um, I was kind of hoping that I could talk to you about something." She hesitated before continuing. "If this is a bad time, I could just go back to class…"

"No, please, sit down." He pulled off his reading glasses and set his papers aside. "What can I do for you?"

"I, uh, have this friend, well not really a friend, but I'm concerned about them. I think something is wrong and I don't know what to do."

Waller frowned. Generally students didn't come to him about advice, if anything, they wouldn't even talk to him unless forced. And she was being so vague about this friend (or not friend) of hers, could it be that she was talking about herself? It wouldn't be the first time that a student had come to a staff member talking about a friend when they were really talking about themselves, but he had never personally been in this situation himself. "What has you concerned about this friend? Anything in particular?" he asked tentatively.

"Well, they seem kind of distant, disconnected from everyone…and I think that they might be involved in something, um, dangerous."

"Dangerous? Like a gang or drugs?" he asked.

She bit her lip. "No…um…I'm not sure if I should say."

Waller knew that she wasn't going to say much more now, their conversation was just about over. He was sure at this point that she was talking about herself and she just wasn't ready to reveal the entire truth at this point, at least not to him. "At least tell me this, is this friend of yours a danger to others?"

"No, I don't think so."

So far so good. "What about to themselves?"

"I'm…I'm not sure. I think maybe I should go to class now."

Okay, less good. "Alright, just make sure to keep an eye on your friend, make sure they're okay and remember that if you ever need to talk, or even if your friend needs to talk, my door is always open."

"Okay, sure."

She got up to leave. "Hold on a moment Ms. Randall, I'll just write a note for your teacher to excuse your lateness. Which class do you have now?" he asked. She told him and he finished off the note. "Don't worry, I didn't include any details, your, uh, friend's secret is safe."

"Thanks Mr. Waller," she said, taking the proffered note and leaving his office. Somehow, she felt a little better, now she just had to convince Eric to talk to Mr. Waller. That was not going to be an easy task considering matters.

In his office, Waller was deep in thought. He had to do something about this, but he wasn't quite sure how to help her. He had never imagined that a troubled student would choose him to turn to, much less that that student would be the popular Lily Randall. But of course, more often than not, the troubled students were those that you would least expect, and who would suspect the lead singer of No Man's Land? Roscoe high did have a counsellor who came to the school a couple of times a week, he decided to give her a call later that day, she would know what to do more than he did. But in the meantime, he would keep an eye on Ms. Randall himself.

And keep an eye on her he did. While Lily was watching Eric covertly, looking for any sign that she could help him or that the situation was worsening, Waller was watching Lily for much of the same reason. Both fortunately and unfortunately for Lily, the guys noticed Waller's odd behaviour more than they noticed her own strange behaviour. It was fortunate because they were no longer asking her about Eric, but it was unfortunate because now they were focused on the fact that Waller seemed to show up everywhere they went and that he had inquired as to her well-being a number of times while largely ignoring the rest of them. She had a feeling that it had something to do with her visit to his office the other day, but it wasn't as if she could use that as an explanation.

Then matters became more complicated. Later on that week she found herself sitting in front of the school counsellor instead of sitting in first period geography. "Um. I'm not sure why I'm here…"

"I think you do, but it takes time for trust to develop, I don't expect you to trust me right away."

"No, really, I don't know why I'm here. I don't have any problems that I need help with." And then it hit her. "Oh, no, I'm here because Waller thinks I'm troubled aren't I?"

"Why would he think that?" asked the counsellor, tapping the eraser on her pencil against her jaw.

Lily sighed. There was no way around it, she would have to explain everything or she would be spending the next who knows how long in therapy that she didn't need. Plus, there would be no rumours coming from the counsellor, non-disclosure was a requirement. The only rumours that could arise would be about her because of this visit to the counsellor and if that was going to happen, there would be no avoiding it at this point. Not that that was likely since she suspected that most of the student population wasn't even aware of the fact that there was a professional counsellor who came to the school. "Okay, look, this is a really big misunderstanding. I went to see Mr. Waller earlier this week, I told him that I was concerned about a friend and he must of thought that I was really talking about myself."

"Why did you go to Mr. Waller? Why not one of your friends? Or someone else?"

"I tried asking my friends for advice, but they weren't much help and I figured that Mr. Waller was the best person to mention this to."

"And…you weren't talking about yourself?"

"No way, I thought he knew that. I was going to tell him more, the first time I was kind of nervous and didn't really know if it was any of my business anyway, but now I'm sure that telling someone is the right thing."

"Well, then, why don't you tell me, starting with who this friend is?" she asked.

"His name is Eric, he's in my geography class. I don't know his last name, he's not really my friend, I didn't even know he existed before Monday."

The counsellor wrote down the information. "And why are you concerned about him?"

Lily told her story from the beginning, how she had seen the scars and that they could not have been accidental. Then how she had sought him out in an effort to determine whether there was something wrong and her subsequent discovery of his lack of friends and antisocial tendencies. She even mentioned the dream she had had, albeit a bit hesitantly.

"And you didn't tell anyone because you thought it might not be your business?"

"I'm sorry, I should have said something sooner."

"No, it's better to be sure about these things and it was a good decision to talk to Mr. Waller about this, even if he did misinterpret what you said."

"So what happens now?" she asked.

"I'll take over with Eric and you need to understand that you cannot talk about this to any of your friends, not that I think you would, I just have to say that."

"I understand."

"And I'll let Mr. Waller know what's really going on, unless you'd rather talk to him yourself."

"I think it would be best if I did. It's my fault that he misinterpreted what I said anyway."

"Why don't you go do that now, and then had back to class?"

"Sure."

"It was nice meeting you Lily."

"Yeah…"

Lily left the conference room where the counsellor met students and headed toward the main office. She knocked on Mr. Waller's door for the second time that week. "Do you have a moment?" she asked, hoping to keep this short. He gestured for her to enter and continue, so she did. "Um, I just wanted to, uh, thank you for your concern, but there's been a bit of a misunderstanding."

"I'm not sure that I follow."

"When I was talking about my friend, I really was talking about someone else. I already explained everything to the counsellor, I just thought you should know."

"Oh, well, good then. I'll just write you a note to get you admitted to class." As she was leaving his office he called after her, "Ms. Randall, my offer still stands, if you ever feel like you need to talk and you have no one else to turn to…"

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."

When she reached room 101, where she had geography class and handed her excuse note to Mr. James, she noticed that Eric wasn't sitting in his desk. He was probably just sick or something, but his absence was troubling to her, it felt as if something was wrong. She tried her best to push that thought to the back of her mind and focus on the remaining time in class. By the end of the day, she had almost managed to banish those thoughts, even managing to pull off a song in the typical style of Shady Lane, railing against conformity and uniforms on RFR.

School the next day was strange, the atmosphere seemed different somehow, subdued in a way. For the first time that week she met the guys before class in the hall. "Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around in the mornings much, I've been sleeping in a bit. So what's going on? Everyone seems a bit strange today."

"Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what Robbie?"

Robbie looked at Travis, who continued, "A student tried to kill himself."

"What? Who?" she asked, afraid that she already knew what the answer was going to be.

"Everyone's saying it was that weird kid in your geography class, his little brother found him in the basement of their house, he's at the hospital now, and they don't know whether he's going to live."

Lily couldn't find the words for a response and hurried off before she lost her composure.

"What was that?" asked Robbie.

"She probably forgot something, come on, hurry or we'll be late again and I can't afford another tardy, one more and I get detention…again." Ray started walking very quickly toward his first period class--gym--and turned to look over his shoulder. "Come on guys!"

Looking once more down the hallway Lily had disappeared down, Robbie and Travis followed Ray. They didn't care much about him getting another tardy, but with this new gym teacher when a student was late, not only were they marked down as late, but they were forced to do one of a number of unpleasant exercises, last time Ray must have had to run more than 50 laps around the gym. Neither of them wanted to end up in the same situation, though they were both somewhat concerned about Lily's behaviour.

Lily stayed out of sight until the bell rang when she came out of the girls' washroom and sat down on one of the benches in the hall, leaning forward with her head in her hands. It was all her fault. If she had only noticed him sooner, said something more clear to Waller, maybe this wouldn't have happened, maybe he could have been helped before it would have come to this. But now no one would ever know what could have been, it could very well be too late for him now.

She didn't notice his presence until he cleared this throat and spoke, "Are you alright?"

Lily looked up and found Mr. Waller standing directly in front of her. There was no point in lying, she knew it was written all over her face anyway. "No."

"You heard about what happened then?" he asked, knowing the answer.

"It was all my fault. If I had just said what I meant, or wasted less time, maybe he wouldn't have gotten to the point that he did, maybe he would have been helped."

He sat down on the bench beside her. "You shouldn't think like that, it only leads to bad places. I think the fact that you said anything at all about this situation is commendable, a lot of students wouldn't have noticed or done anything about it if they did."

"I guess. I feel like I could have done more."

"It might take some time for you to get over that feeling. Just remember that none of this was your fault, none of it." Waller stood.

She nodded. "Is he going to be okay?" she asked.

"The doctors think so, he'll get the help he needs now."

"That's good," she replied.

Waller was about to walk away, but stopped. "Ms. Randall--Lily--if you feel unable to attend class this morning, don't worry about it. If you need to be alone, you can use my office, I have some things to do, but I'll be back later, so if you want to talk…" he offered.

She nodded again. "Thanks." Waller wasn't nearly as bad as most of the students believed. She hadn't seen it at first, but deep down he really was a good person and a good principal, if a little misguided at times.

The End.

Author's Note: Yeah, so this story portrays Mr. Waller as more of a human being than he usually was on the series and in other fics and I wanted to write a story that shows how the rest of the RFR gang lets Lily down sometimes by not being there for her.

I found this story buried in my hard drive and I just had to post it. It's a one-shot, but I found some plans for a sort of sequel and I might write one after my Eureka story is finished, or perhaps after I finish that Cold Squad story I have to rewrite, depending on how inspiration strikes me. Please review.


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